


Good Advice

by clare_dragonfly



Category: NCIS, Warehouse 13
Genre: Community: intoabar, F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:47:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/820141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clare_dragonfly/pseuds/clare_dragonfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helena is worried about Artie; she meets a guy who turns out to be a good listener.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Advice

**Author's Note:**

> This is set during the first half of season 4 of Warehouse 13 and after season 9 of NCIS. Contains some spoilers. The entire fic is from H. G.'s perspective, so canon knowledge of NCIS is not necessary. Includes Jimmy's relationship with Breena and H. G.'s with Myka, but neither is the focus of the fic.

Helena walked down the street with a sigh. Sometimes artifact hunting was a chore, a drag, a pain. No wonder the Warehouse agents usually did their hunting only when there were sightings; with no clues to go on, no one apparently using the artifact to do strange things, there was nothing to do but search out obscure mentions from minor writings, and comb the world.

It wasn’t as though she was in a hurry at the moment, though. In fact, she rather had a feeling that she _shouldn’t_ hurry, should take as long as she could manage to find this particular dagger. True, Artie had asked her particularly, and she felt a peculiar loyalty to the crotchety, brilliant man who had so recently completely turned around in her opinion of her. But there was something odd about the request, and she wanted to turn it around in her mind some more.

When she saw the bar, she decided that was the perfect place to do her turning around.

It was half-empty, more quiet than many bars but not the silent sort of place where the worst of drunks came to pass out—all the better. She slid into a bar stool, smiled at the attractive blonde bartender, and ordered a chocolate martini, something that had most certainly not existed when Queen Victoria ruled and one of the many new pleasures she had discovered since her reawakening. A few moments later, the blonde returned and slid not one but two chocolate martinis onto the bar: one for Helena, one for her neighbor. “Chocolate martini for each of you,” she said, and walked off with a smile.

Helena picked up her glass and turned to her neighbor, unable to resist the coincidence. “Cheers.”

“Ah, cheers,” said the young man next to her, smiling awkwardly and taking two tries to clink their glasses together. He was very cute, with glasses, curly brown hair, and a teenager’s round face. (Helena had a weakness for glasses and curly brown hair.) So she gave him a somewhat more seductive smile before taking a sip of her martini.

“Ah, bliss,” she said. “I’m Helena Wells.” She held out her hand gracefully to shake.

The young man choked a little on his own drink, spluttered, then shook her hand gingerly. “Wow, Wells, huh? Any relation to the science fiction author? I mean, obviously he lived a long time ago, so maybe you don’t even know, but that would be really interesting.”

“I believe I am a relation of some sort,” said Helena, concealing her smirk. “And you are?”

“Oh, uh, Jimmy Palmer.” He laughed slightly. “No relation to the baseball player James Palmer.”

“I would never have thought to ask,” Helena said with a shrug. She sipped more at her drink, wondering what should be her tactic with this interesting young man: a distraction, or simply someone to talk to while she tried to work out her problem? She wondered what Myka would tell her to do. The two of them had an understanding, so she was fairly certain Myka wouldn’t be offended by Helena’s desire to sleep with Jimmy, but Myka would probably tell Helena to do whatever Artie had asked her to do. Even if she didn’t understand why it was.

No, Myka would tell her to figure it out. Figure out what was bothering her, because she needed to trust her instincts. Helena sighed slightly and looked down into her drink. “Jimmy, do you mind if I talk to you to work out something I’m puzzled about?”

“Oh, not at all!” He actually sounded eager. “I’m a good listener. And, um, my wife’s not here yet, so I have nothing better to do than to listen to a beautiful woman spill her problems.”

Wife. Helena smiled into her drink. Yes, she’d made the right choice; if she’d tried flirting with him, she would have either lost both her chances or possibly caused major problems in this poor boy’s life. “Thank you, Jimmy. Of course, the difficulty is that everything I’d like to talk about is… shall we say, rather secret.”

“That’s quite all right.” He laughed. “I work for the government, so I know about secrets. Feel free to talk around anything that you can’t tell me.”

“Very good.” She finished her drink and signaled for another one, then began. “The place I work for collects unusual objects. I’ve been sent on a mission to find one in particular. However, it’s proving difficult to find, and I am not entirely sure if finding it is the right thing to do, even though that’s what I have been told to do. You see, I am unsure of the motives of the man who sent me to find them.”

“Is he your boss?” Jimmy asked.

“Yes. In a way.” Helena considered. “There are others we both answer to.”

“So if you get in trouble with him, but the others you answer to think you did the right thing, you won’t get fired.”

It would be worse than fired, but Helena nodded. “Yes, I think that is about right.”

Jimmy nodded. “If I did something my boss disagreed with, but that the director thought was right, I wouldn’t be in trouble—not that I can imagine ever doing that.”

“I would not have thought that my goals and this man’s would ever misalign, at least not since we have reconciled on certain matters.” Artie and Helena both loved the Warehouse. But this dagger didn’t have anything to do with the Warehouse specifically, did it? Helena frowned. It did bother her that Artie had so suddenly realized the truth about her feelings for the Warehouse. Did he know something that she did not?

“Ahh, that makes it harder.” Jimmy sucked a tooth. “Do you think he’s just wrong, or is there a deeper issue?”

“Oh, a deeper issue, certainly.” She waved a hand. “There’s no reason not to seek this object, really. It’s the sort of thing we would always want to find. But normally we do not go searching like this without having some sign of where the item might be.”

“Maybe he has heard something about where it is, he just didn’t share it with you,” Jimmy pointed it out. “Though I guess that would be kind of a bad idea, since it would be harder for you to find it than him.”

“True.” Helena pursed her lips and played with her martini glass, thinking. “If he has heard something, but does not wish to share it with me, there must be a reason… and I’m sure it isn’t that he doesn’t trust me. And there must be a reason he sent me to find it, rather than someone else.” Helena was more of a free agent, since she was not normally partnered with one of the other agents, but surely it would have been easier for one of the teams to go, letting their particular strengths work together—or if it was so urgent, it would have been best to send everyone on the search. But she did not think the other agents even knew of the dagger.

“Well, do you have any special, like, finding stuff skills?” He laughed.

“Not any more than anyone else. But I haven’t spoken to anyone about it, and if he asked someone else, they would have to speak to at least one other person.” She tapped her fingers on her glass. “I’m sure… I’m sure he has a reason for finding this particular object, but he won’t tell me what it is. And he has been acting a bit oddly lately.”

“How so?”

“He seemed to know about something before it happened.” Helena shook her head, frowning. “And he’s very good at what he does, but I am not sure how he could possibly know about that.”

“Do you think he could be a bad guy?” Jimmy’s voice was hushed. “Like a spy?”

Helena surprised herself with a laugh. “My boss? Hardly. He’s the last person who… unless…” Unless something had happened to him. Unless an artifact had warped his mind. But what artifact could have done that without the rest of them knowing about it?

“Unless?” Jimmy prompted.

She shook her head. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that part.” No, if an artifact had warped him, it would have to have been after the altercation with Walter Sykes. Or… during. It might well have been during, mightn’t it? He knew about the bomb in the wheelchair. He knew about Helena’s feelings for the Warehouse. She knew where this was leading.

It had been something of an unhealthy obsession for her once, after all.

“Hi, sweetheart,” came another woman’s voice from Jimmy’s side. “Who’s this?” Helena turned to see a beautiful blonde woman sliding an arm around Jimmy’s shoulders and offering Helena an open smile. The wife Jimmy was waiting for, evidently, and Helena was glad to see that there was no suspicion or jealousy in Helena’s gaze. Trying to seduce this young man, attractive as he was, would have been a bad idea all around. She was glad she hadn’t done it.

“Helena,” she said, holding out her hand. “Jimmy here has just been giving me some very helpful advice.”

“This is Breena,” said Jimmy as the two women shook hands. He laughed a little. “And I’m not sure I’ve really been giving you advice. I’m just trying to listen to your problems.”

“And you’re an excellent listener,” said Helena with a smile. “You’ve helped very much. Thank you.”

“Jimmy’s really good at that,” said Breena, planting a kiss on his head. “I’m glad he was able to help.”

“You’ve got a wonderful man there,” Helena told her. “Hang onto him.”

They both laughed. “I intend to,” she said.

“Good.” Helena downed the last of her drink and slid off the stool. “And now I’m afraid I really must go.”

“Oh, don’t leave on my account,” said Breena. “You seemed to be getting along well.”

Helena shook her head. “We were, but I have worked through my problem, and I believe I need to make a call.” Mrs. Frederic would know what to do. She always did. And she was the only person who could make Arthur Nielsen do anything. “Thank you again, and have a lovely evening, the two of you.” She walked off before they could argue any more and went to the end of the bar to settle her bill. She paid for Jimmy’s drink as well; he deserved at least that much.

Then she left the bar and went to find a hotel. She would make her call from there, and then she would be on her way to working things out.

She had an idea for where to find the dagger now, as well. There were many things Artie had evidently not told her, and she thought there were things he might be hiding from himself. Helena Wells would find them out. She would get to the bottom of the mystery. It was, after all, what she did.


End file.
